New Year's Eve

The past four years, we have gotten together on New Year's Eve with my three housemates from college and their husbands.  It has always been a ton of fun, and since we have all lived in different cities since graduation, our "Rendez-Vous" (that was also the name of our house) are few and far between.  Unfortunately, things did not work out this year, leaving Grant and I with nothing to do until our good friends Katie & Dave invited us over :-) Thanks guys, you are awesome!!

I had already decided we should have a nice dinner (aka I'd allow myself to splurge at the grocery store!!) to start off our evening. It was fun to have dinner with just the two of us (but we really did miss our usual NYE pals), reminiscing about the past year.  We talked about some of our favorite moments of the year... topping the list were finding out we were pregnant, the ultrasounds and our trip to Nantucket!  After dinner, we had a great time playing games with our friends and believe it or not, I stayed up til midnight! (But was in bed shortly after!!)

Here was our menu: 

Appetizer: Cheese Fondue with granny smith apples, bread & carrots 

Main Course: Garlic Marinated Steak, Spinach & Chive Linguine with olive oil and Parmesan

Dessert: Happy New Year sugar cookies... because sugar cookies are my favorite, ok? And I never made any for Christmas due to my glucose tolerance test situation.  

Drink: a bottle of sparkling cider... yes, we drank the whole bottle.  We are that crazy. 

Now... a few thoughts about the meal. 

#1- buying the fondue pre-made from Trader Joes does go against my desire to make everything from scratch... but this was $5.99... and it included GRUYERE, COMTE & EMMENTAL, along with the wine and kirsch... ok, seriously, that is a steal.  I was at Giant Eagle and saw a bag of the same three cheeses shredded (but you'd still need to add the wine) for ... $15.99!! Anyways, there really weren't any artificial ingredients added to the TJs blend, and it definitely tasted authentic :-) 

#2- the marinated steak was very-well marinated... I think I'd cut back on the amount the next time.  This brings me to one of my cooking goals for 2012: I want to be able to cook meat without having to cut it open & check if it's done... or perhaps just invest in a better thermometer!

#3- this sugar cookie recipe (thank you pinterest!) was the best one I've made yet. 

Happy 2012 friends :-) I can't believe we will become a family of 3 this year!!  (Ok, more like super soon...)

Christmas 2011

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Grant only gets 10 vacation days a year, and usually by this point in the year he has used them all up. (I am a firm believer in using them since his do not accumulate year to year!) He took last Thursday and Friday off, which was nice because we were able to finish up some shopping, do some cleaning and of course pack for Christmas in Akron.

I spent Thursday and Friday planning some baking projects... I made homemade hot chocolate mix to give to some friends and family members and also homemade peppermint bark. Both were awesome :-) The hot chocolate mix said to use 1/3 cup but that was waaay too rich, so I changed the serving amount to 3 Tbsp, assuming that people know they should just add more if they want it to be richer. 

peppermint bark

hot cocoa mix

Friday, we had Grant's coworkers Tom and Sarah over for dinner. I am so thankful he has great people like them to keep him sane at his job. We had Baked Cream Cheese (a Clark family favorite) as an appetizer, followed by Pasta Carbonara, bread & salad for dinner. I also made mint brownies for dessert. I used 1 1/2 tsp peppermint extract instead of the creme de methe... and instead of making the homemade brownies, I used a box... it was a good decision. They were délicieux! 

Saturday, we woke up bright and early and headed to Akron. I had brunch at First Watch with 9 others girls with whom I was in youth group when I was in high school. It was so good to see them and catch up. We hung out at my parents' house for awhile that afternoon and then got dressed for dinner at Ken Stewart's Lodge. It was fun to be back there because that is where we held our rehearsal dinner before our wedding in 2007. It was beautifully decorated for Christmas. We went to the Christmas Eve service at church and then hung out with some family friends until MIDNIGHT. Oh my goodness... I cannot stay up that late any more, especially if I continue not to sleep well each night. 

The Clark Family :-) We take a pic at church each year.  It's pretty much our only family picture of the year most years.

 We slept in til NINE on Christmas morning (well, laid in bed at least... I figured this might be the last time I get to do that with our little guy on the way) and then had brunch and opened presents. We are so blessed to have wonderful families, now with each sibling in our families having their own iPAD we can facetime all the time to stay in touch. Hopefully that will make our little man's grandparents feel more connected to him since they do not live here in Columbus. Christmas continued later that day with dinner at my Aunt & Uncle's, followed by a rousing game of the Harry Potter edition of Clue. Linds... we need to play next time we are together, seriously. 

Christmas morning brunch & presents in our pjs

Emmers in front of the tree

 Monday we celebrated with lunch with Grant's parents and then they headed to Florida for the winter. It was so sweet to have Christmas with them before they left... but we really missed having our family in Denver here in Ohio. After they left we spent a few hours hanging out with the Becks, who were in town for Christmas. Christina is one of my sweet sorority sisters and is 10 weeks behind me in her pregnancy... so fun :-)

Baby Girl Beck coming in May and Baby Boy Miller in February!

 Joyeux Noel!!

Menu Plan Monday 4/25

Well, I successfully hosted my first holiday. My sister Laura flew in from Chicago on Saturday and my parents and Emily drove in on Sunday. We had a delicious brunch followed by a visit from the Easter Bunny. (Apparently it doesn't matter that we are all in our twenties...) THANK YOU EASTER BUNNY for your Starbucks coffee, Starbucks gift card, homemade bread & candy. You know me too well.

My Mom contributed the ham... and left most of it with us. I usually try to have at least 2-3 meatless meals a week, but the leftover ham needs to be used... so we will be pigging out this week..ha...ha... Seriously though, I really am creeped out by meat that looks like the animal, so at least with the ham it's only a portion of the pig. Also...at the holidays... I don't follow my "food rules," so there are definitely some things below that are not the norm on our menu.

Sunday: EASTER BRUNCH: Honeybaked ham, cheesy potatoes, roasted asparagus with thyme, fruit salad, sticky buns, carrot cake, sugar cookies frosted to look like Easter eggs and peanut butter fudge.
Monday: ham & vegetable soup, cornbread
Tuesday: ham & noodle casserole, green beans
Wednesday: breakfast burritos, hashbrowns, fruit
Thursday: TJs Chicken Sausages & TJs gorgonzola gnocchi
Friday: homemade pizza
Saturday: date night (using a gift card!)

Perhaps after this week, I will finally feel motivated to eat vegetarian meals all week...

Menu Plan monday 4/18

SO excited this week is a 4 day week... and then a 4 day weekend... which means another 4 day week!! We are super busy this week, since we decided to celebrate the anniversary of our engagement (which is not something we typically do) on Wednesday, and we have stuff at church on Thurs and Fri... and Saturday my sister is flying in from Chicago, and then Sunday, we are hosting my family for Easter dinner!

Sunday: white chicken chili & cornbread... I threw leftover brown rice into it this time and it totally worked... I also omit either the jalapenos or the chilies and cut waaay back on the cayenne
Monday: veggie burgers & mac & cheese
Tuesday: Orecchiette with Italian sausage and broccoli (using broccoli b/c that's what I have on hand)
Wednesday: date at Northstar Cafe with Grant, celebrating our engagement 4 years ago :-) (side note: I LOVE Northstar, but this time, it was Grant's idea!! SO excited he loves it as much as I do!)
Thursday: Asparagus quiche (substituting asparagus for bacon in this recipe) hash browns & fruit
Friday: homemade Stromboli
Saturday: taking my sister out somewhere!!

Naplespalooza threeza!

This blog was initially intended to be about more than what I'm cooking each week... but the school year is BUSY... we ARE doing other things, but when we are away doing something fun, I spend most of the week catching up on school work. I'm going to attempt, throughout the next few weeks to write a few posts about some of our spring adventures!

At the beginning of March, we took a four-day trip to Naples, FL to visit Grant's parents, who have been living there all winter. This was our third visit to their second home- but the first one during the peak season... the past two years we have gone in July... The weather is definitely better in March! We took a VERY early morning flight on a Thursday and a VERY late flight back on a Sunday. Not only did we get to see his parents, but also Grant's sisters, our brother-in-law and our adorable nephews.

I am the palest one in the family, so I purchased a lovely hat from Target for a little protection from the sun... which everyone made fun of. They were just jealous of my style :-) I read the 4th book in the Twilight series... I started reading them because my students were all reading them... not as good as Harry Potter, but they were still entertaining. I don't "get" the whole deal with vampires though... We had a short, but very sweet trip... went out to dinner a few times, played games and spent many hours in and lounging around the pool. It was definitely hard to return back to cold, snowy Ohio. Grant & I rarely think to take pictures together, so it's always nice to have a few updated photos of the two of us :-) And a HUGE thanks to Mimi & Papa for a great trip!!